News No More Taxes

...and no more military, police, fire departments, public schools, road construction. No more damned government bureucracies making sure that companies don't dump arsenic in your drinking water. We can dispense with free immunizations for children, because if their parents can't afford drugs, we don't care if they live or die, right? For that matter, no more money for ANY poor people, especially children. Children don't pay in, why should they get anything back?!?

Speaking of which, let's dump ALL social programs! If you're a junkie drug addict convict, and your dad isn't governor of Florida, screw you, you can die on the streets! Of course, when they break into your home, you can shoot them!(Don't call 911, though...no cops, remember?) If you can't pay for something, you just do without. I don't want MY tax dollars going to feed someone, let them starve!!

Yep, that's the country I want to live in...America, where we are all in it together, we're one nation (under whatever you want), so long as you don't actually have to sacrifice or give anything up.

Staff: Mentor

Hey, taxes are BAD..especially when they are used to help people! Now, I guess we can keep some taxes around, so we can build a magical sheild around the country, to prevent teh least-likely form of nuclear attack. And,sure, we can build prisons to house all the criminals, if we just cut veteran's medical benefits some more. We can have SWAT teams to go after criminals, so long as we don't send any money to help them get an education, so maybe they would grow up to be responsible citizens.

We must have defense, we must have certain amenities in order to maintain the greatness of our country.

Now, regardless of personal morality, you must understand two things :

1). Projects performed in the private sector are ALWAYS more efficient and cost-productive than government run programs...always.
2). One in a hundred millionaires remain philanthrophists. More has been done for the betterment of humankind in the private sector than could ever be possibly realized by government.

The thing is, identify that which needs government supervision or control, eliminate all else. The government should have very few responsibilities. We tend to force it to assume so much responsibility for everything, it can't possibly live up to the expectation....so we throw money at it and tax people more. It will never end. We will pay everything we have in the end, and recieve very little back.

Look at socialized medicine. Especially in europe...its a mess, and yet so many people here want it? WTF? Its bad enough already, why not let supply and demand equalize the situation and push medicine back to a realistic proposition. Time has proven that a free market will take care of itself. Give it a decade to coalesce (w/o gvmnt intervention), and everyone will have the care they need at a price that is reasonable.

My big problem with tax is this : It has become the norm to tax production, not consumption. Income tax (constitutionally unsound) has bereft the popular morale of the indigent "frontier" work ethic. The harder you work, the more you are taxed. Why then should we work so hard? This same question is indicative of a communist system. It denies a personal striving for excellence.

If I am going to work my ass off, I want immediate material gain...I want to be rich. Tax my production (income tax) and you are taxing my drive.

We must have funds for defense, ect (oh! a whole other thread! What is goveernment responsible for?). Well, ok. Tax CONSUMPTION. Sales tax. This sort of tax indicatively hits the richest hardest. The poor remain less effected (but like any tax, it remains even within economies of scale). If you are poor, well, it may suck but you cannot afford that new Chevy with the phat boom, tinted windows, and hydraulics both fore and aft. You can sure as hell afford food and nice housing, medical care and insurance though').All this talk (if you haven't noticed by now) about rich and poor is total and utter BS. We are all hit the same, one way or the other. Please disregard the propoganda to this extent :)

Anyway, you may say that taxing consumption will reduce consumer spending, thus slowing the economy. Quite rightly so. If you have asked this question, give thyself a pat on the back. However, consider that certain markets, being prerequisites for survival in a modern age, must be attained, can you really be so greived when a vaccuum appears where Brittany Spears CD's, Starbuck's Coffee houses, and $200 tennis shoes become the luxury items they truly are?

If you are poor, this will affect you...not at all. If you are rich expect to pay more for those luxury items. Either way, we can still split the hair on a camels ass with a JDAM.

I would counter this by saying that this isn't how the real world works...in real-life cases, normal people are priced out of many things. Sure, they are luxuries, but why would necessities be any different?

Luxuries run by supply and supply. i.e manufactue a gold necklace that costs $100 and sells 10k units or manufacture 10 necklaces that cost 100K each. An apt, realworld example would be SUVs. WTF would you by an SUV which cost 15% more but has less performance and safety? BECAUSE YOU CAN.

We must have defense, we must have certain amenities in order to maintain the greatness of our country.

Now, regardless of personal morality, you must understand two things :

1). Projects performed in the private sector are ALWAYS more efficient and cost-productive than government run programs...always.
2). One in a hundred millionaires remain philanthrophists. More has been done for the betterment of humankind in the private sector than could ever be possibly realized by government.

All-encompassing statements are usually false, as yours is. I wouldn't say that private sector stuff is always more efficient. The medical system in Sweden is much better and, I would think, more efficient than ours.
And regardless of efficiency, you have to understand motive. Private corporations often do things to the detriment of the common person where public entities would not.

About #2: The private sector and public sector both have had great accomplishments. Trying to compare what they've done is kind of like comparing apples and oranges, as they say.
There haven't always been representative governments to do good things for the public. Most governments have been and still are oppressive, so that gives the private sector a big advantage as far as world history goes. However, in the USA we do not have such an oppressive government. The private sector has generally been better at inventing, however, public programs are often better at providing widespread services. Of course, the US government did create the internet...which has tremendously shaped our societies.

Anyway, we could compare what has been done in the private sector and what has been done in the public sector all year long, but the important thing is that both have helped somewhere, with one sometimes being more appropriate, sometimes the other.

The thing is, identify that which needs government supervision or control, eliminate all else. The government should have very few responsibilities. We tend to force it to assume so much responsibility for everything, it can't possibly live up to the expectation....so we throw money at it and tax people more. It will never end. We will pay everything we have in the end, and recieve very little back.

***EDIT*** (forget to enclose this in a quote box and reply to it

Look at socialized medicine. Especially in europe...its a mess, and yet so many people here want it? WTF? Its bad enough already, why not let supply and demand equalize the situation and push medicine back to a realistic proposition. Time has proven that a free market will take care of itself. Give it a decade to coalesce (w/o gvmnt intervention), and everyone will have the care they need at a price that is reasonable.

I was under the impression that Sweden has a very good and socialized medical system. Correct me if I am wrong.

[/QUOTE]
My big problem with tax is this : It has become the norm to tax production, not consumption. Income tax (constitutionally unsound)
[/QUOTE]

ummm. "Article XVI.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. "

has bereft the popular morale of the indigent "frontier" work ethic. The harder you work, the more you are taxed. Why then should we work so hard? This same question is indicative of a communist system. It denies a personal striving for excellence.

If I am going to work my ass off, I want immediate material gain...I want to be rich. Tax my production (income tax) and you are taxing my drive.

You are drawing a straight correlation between hard work and money, which isn't how things are. I can tell you that junior in the white house didn't very hard to get his money.

Also, you would still have more total money after taxes if you make more money, because the tax bracket system is set up that way. It is diminishing returns, but you know what? If some guy says "aw man, I will only make $300,000 more, instead of $500,000 more, it's not worth it" (which I find a little hard to believe), then that's great. Because that means more resources for other people.

Luxuries run by supply and supply. i.e manufactue a gold necklace that costs $100 and sells 10k units or manufacture 10 necklaces that cost 100K each. An apt, realworld example would be SUVs. WTF would you by an SUV which cost 15% more but has less performance and safety? BECAUSE YOU CAN.

Wrong. Price it beyond an average person's ability to pay for it leads to it becoming a prestige things, which makes the top 5% even more eager to buy it at any price. Actually, once it becomes a rarity, you can charge even more than the amount needed to break even with higher-volume sales. That's teh way it works alot of the time too. Do art dealers go out of business simply because 99% can't afford fine art? NO, they make a damned killing at it, by charging teh richest people exorbitant prices.

Originally posted by Dissident Dan ummm. "Article XVI.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration. "

Dan,
Taxation, the legalilty thereof, is a very interesting topic (US taxation, that is). Here are two links that might be of interest;

Look at socialized medicine. Especially in europe...its a mess, and yet so many people here want it? WTF? Its bad enough already, why not let supply and demand equalize the situation and push medicine back to a realistic proposition. Time has proven that a free market will take care of itself. Give it a decade to coalesce (w/o gvmnt intervention), and everyone will have the care they need at a price that is reasonable.

I really doubt that it would happen quite like that. What we've got now is what amounts to medical procrastination (for those without health insurance, about 40 million people) until the situation becomes a critical emergency, while preventative medicines exist that would've been cheaper and more beneficial to the paitient to use in the first place, could he/she afford it. Medical services are ALREADY provided at discount for very poor people, at the expense of institutions which are not originally designed to carry such people. If you let the market "regulate" itself, in this case, then the canniest capitalist (the clinic that refuses to care for poor people at a discount, for example) will be the only survivor, and people will needlessly die.
I'm not advocating Europe's socialized medicine, but if you look at if from the perspective of prevention, there definitely needs to be SOMETHING the public can rely on.